bbronc & jamie, count yourselves lucky. my furry alarm not only yowls but stomps back and forth across a body abed and paws at the face of his lazy good for nothing servant. has also been known to get things moving by a passing nip.

Something curious happened while supporters of President Bone Spur were busy vilifying Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, an Army combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient, for telling what he heard on the bizarre July 25 White House phone call to the president of Ukraine.
As Vindman’s outstanding military and diplomatic service was being trashed by pampered worms like Donald Trump Jr., another major witness in the House impeachment investigation was experiencing an eerie awakening.
Gordon Sondland, the president’s personal pick as ambassador to the European Union, got up one morning and discovered that his memory of key events had mysteriously improved. All of a sudden he could recall conversations that he’d previously claimed didn’t happen.
Originally, for instance, Sondland testified he never said that $400 million in U.S. security aid to Ukraine was being withheld until that country agreed to investigate Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
In fact, Sondland’s text that there was “no quid-pro-quo” had been waved by the president’s defenders as proof that the White House reconstruction of that weird Ukraine call was being misinterpreted.
Unfortunately, other national security officials and diplomats began testifying otherwise. That’s when the self-survival cells in Sondland’s brainpan began to twitch.
Some folks with failing memories gorge themselves on drug-store products like ginkgo or jellyfish proteins. Sondland needed no such potions.
The fear of being charged with perjury was plenty.
He asked House investigators if he could revise his initial account with a “supplemental declaration,” an innocuous-sounding phrase crafted by a lawyer.
It definitely sounds better than saying, “My client wants to change his story and cover his ass. Please?”
[continues with interesting background info]
The “refreshed” Sondland elaborated that, “In the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid, I presumed that the aid suspension had become linked” to Ukraine’s lack of action on the investigations sought by Trump.
This is from the president’s own guy, not some career military officer or CIA whistleblower that can be falsely branded a “deep state” operative. Sondland is the opposite of deep.
In Trump World, though, speaking the truth is the same as betrayal. As of this writing, Sondland still has a job, but his ambassador days are numbered.
There will be lots of time for reflection on the long flight back to Portland, and one of the many questions he should be asking himself is:
How do I get my $1 million back?

Only six candidates turned out for the first ever presidential forum on environmental justice, at South Carolina State University on Friday night.
Issues such as lead-contaminated water, food deserts, childhood asthma and proximity to polluting chemical plants and industrial pig farms disproportionately affect low income communities, tribal nations and people of colour.
The Democratic candidates who participated were senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker; former members of congress John Delaney and Joe Sestak; the billionaire Tom Steyer and the author Marianne Williamson.
Warren, who launched an ambitious climate and environmental justice plan last month, said a third of the $3tn she has pledged to spend combating global heating over the next decade would be ring fenced for communities devastated by generations of environmental racism.
She pledged to tackle big corporations including big polluters by introducing anti-corruption legislation on her first day as president.
Asked about Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s recently leaked comment that a Warren presidency would “suck” for the company, she responded: “Boo-hoo.”
[…]
The Flint water scandal in 2014 propelled environmental inequalities to the national stage. Since then, it has emerged that thousands of water sources in communities across the US are contaminated with lead. This includes Newark, New Jersey, where Booker was mayor. He pledged to fund a national programme to replace lead pipes,
The New Jersey senator, who founded the first environmental justice caucus, is himself vegan, in response he says to the cruel and polluting “corporate animal industry” which is responsible for massive greenhouse gas emissions and health problems in nearby communities.
Booker defended supporting nuclear power, a position criticized by environmental justice groups given the health risks posed by nuclear waste, arguing that it was the only way to meet climate targets within 12 years.
“50% of our non-carbon energy producing capacity come from nuclear,” he said, “so I’m a realist.”
[…]
The environmental justice forum was hosted by the National Black Caucus of State Legislators and leaders from frontline and tribal communities, civil rights, youth and environmental organizations.
It was moderated by Mustafa Santiago Ali, a former Environmental Protection Agency official, and Amy Goodman from the independent news organization Democracy Now!
The caucus will host a forum on gun violence and mental health next month.

by David Horsey in Seattle times
On the same day that 11,258 scientists in 153 countries published a report warning that the planet “clearly and unequivocally faces a climate emergency,” the Trump administration made it official: The United States is withdrawing from the Paris climate accord that is, so far, humanity’s best collective response to that same emergency.
Jesse Bellemare, an associate professor of biology at Smith College, told the Washington Post that this newest study “establishes a clear record of the broad consensus among most scientists active at this point in history that the climate crisis is real, and is a major, even existential, threat to human societies, human well-being, and biodiversity.”
Unfortunately, President Donald Trump and his advisers are choosing not to believe this report or any other scientific findings that undercut the administration’s full throttle drive to allow unfettered exploitation of fossil fuels. Rather than transition to a futuristic economy based on renewable energy, Trump and friends are sticking with oil, gas and coal, no matter how dire the consequences for future generations.
This willfully ignorant policy may prove to be the most unforgivable legacy of this destructive president.

Craig that makes a good framing for the WWII era. I was going to say WWII started with Russia and Germany dividing up Poland and ended with the fall of the Berlin wall.
The US ended up as the leader of a world empire that always made it uncomfortable. It is difficult when you lead from moral superiority. Easy to trip up. So you can see why Trump has the foreign policy he has.
Jack

Under the “everything Trump touches dies” column, the Dancing With The Stars edition.
A fun read from a never Trumper conservative and his take on modern culture.
A point:
I’m not a fan of DWTS. I have never watch it, turned it on nor followed it other than through cultural comments here and other places.
Also, I’m not tempted to do so now.
Just sayin’
Jack

Well we will see. The biggest issue for people in 2018was Health Care and not some lame do over of the ACA
Who are you going to believe the lyin’ insurance companies or the combined support of Bernie and Warren
People want what other civilized countries have and it is not the ACA

The most popular option, at 32 percent, consisted of a universal, government-operated system that also would allow people to buy private, supplemental insurance.

Twenty-six percent of respondents said they wanted a government insurance plan offered to all citizens, but one that doesn’t compel people with private plans to use it, a system sometimes called a “public option.”

A small minority of 15 percent of voters said they wanted the government to completely remove itself from paying for health care, while another 14 percent said they want to keep the existing health care system intact.

What Bink, you don’t think post war US leadership was morally superior to the Nazis? */snark*
Sorry for the less than clear comment above. (actually down right muddy) My thoughts were more about how Trump conducts his foreign policy in contrast to post WWII. Where in the end Eastern Europe moved from repressive authoritarian governments to liberal democracies. US post war leadership was based on an attempt to assume moral leadership in the world and supporting Democratic ideals, that they often fell short is more about the difficulty of the task than failure. Of course Trump has discarded such sloppy thinking.
Jack

The middle-class “haves” have less, which makes universal education/job training/healthcare more and more desirable among them, as well as those who are severely, financially marginalized. Warren, all the way.

Your tax-dollars represent increments of your life. You spend precious and limited time earning them. Trump spends those tax-dollars, those moments of YOUR LIFE, enriching himself, awarding government contracts to his companies, giving jobs to his unqualified spawn, buying-off the family of a British manslaughter victim, and selling out American soldiers so he can build his hotels in dictatorships. Is that how you want to spend your life?

He spends them to go golfing when he should be working, spends them to create photo-opportunities to make it look like he wasn’t golfing when he should have been working; he spends them on Nazi-style political rallies where he only lies, insults the vulnerable, and incites violence. If 51% of my fellow Americans are fine with that, then let ‘em have the government they want. No tailoring of messages required.

By the way, who paid for Rudy’s international trips he took with the purpose of intimidating American public servants and vulnerable allies, in order to besmirch other Americans? I’ll bet YOU did!

At Buffalo Phil’s Pub on the Strip, two retired university professors sit having a drink and talking. They don’t mind sharing their opinions about Trump.
“He’s a pathetic excuse for a president,” said Dwight Eddins, a former English professor. “He’s wrecking the Republican Party.Nonetheless, Eddins expects the stadium crowd to cheer Trump. “He’s in home territory here,” Eddins said.
“He needs a group that’ll cheer him, not boo him,” said Rich Crow, a retired professor of social work, referring to Trump getting booed at a World Series game in Washington, D.C. The Alabama football crowd will definitely be more sympathetic than that, he said.
“My wife and I will be at the game,” he said. “We’ll probably boo.”

Jamie, Kamala/Klobuchar? one more “K” there and you might lure in some unsuspecting deplorables 🙂

btw, interesting joy interview on msnbc with de niro. he really laid into trump. also when asked about a dem contender he 1st mentioned pete saying he was smart enough and young. then he went all out for Bloomberg.

“Trump doesn’t have a foreign policy“
I wish you were right it would be much easier if that was the case. Trump is about isolationism, that means no immigration, allies or coordinating with others to achieve goals. Instead his go it alone rests on the belief that we are the superior power both militarily and economically and will always remain so. As a result he/we bully, threaten, and and pass out favors at the whim of the president.
Part of Trumps foreign policy involves over the top adulation of the president.
It is like nothing this nation has ever seen before but that mean it doesn’t exist.
As a result just getting rid of Trump isn’t enough we need to bury Trumpism and disgrace his enablers. Running hard to the socialist left as the Democrats appear to be doing isn’t going to work.
But that appears to be what we got. A political party that believes it can win by catering to 20% of the country.
Oh well.
Not my problem anymore. 20 years I probably won’t be around anyway. Hell of a legacy we boomers are leaving
Jack

I want a woman to change things. The country needs a loving mom right now.
Warren, Harris, Klobuchar, or even Williamson, who despite her lack of political experience at least can lead with love and integrity.

trump’s foreign policy is to give the store away to trump, so he can get the world’s most luxurious hotels/fashion & jewelry bazaars/resorts in russia : St Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Yalta, and Georgia, and whatever is left of us will be given to the saudis & Gulf States for the largest hotels/fashion and jewelry bazaars/resorts in Jeddah, Medina, Mecca, Riyadh, Kuwait, Abu Dabi, and Dubai.
And naturally, russian & saudi financing for the trump television network.

”…getting rid of Trump isn’t enough we need to bury Trumpism and disgrace his enablers.”

How does one disgrace those who have no shame, and how do we bury a political philosophy rooted in ignorance? We certainly can’t call middle-Americans “ignorant” or their poor feewings get hurt, and then they put kids in cages and throw acid in people’s faces, out of spite.

Our best hope is the arrival of benevolent extraterrestrial overlords.

Mr Jack,
I fully subscribe to your policy of rooting out and destroying trumpism. What I am wondering is, how does M4A pander to 20% ? I presume, you mean the lowest quintile of earners. I am not sure that would be offensive to the next three quintiles.

However, there would be other benefits for those people, too. A move toward permanently inexpensive energy, for one. More safety from gun violence. Reducing air, water, and food pollution. Net neutrality. Less Federal waste, fraud, and abuse. More stable medical costs. Less college debt. Less likelihood that the kids will move back with you. Less risky behavior on Wall Street. National pride grounded in our high ethical standards, rather than in the power to bully.

oh ya, I forgot. Add Supreme Court Justices who would NEVER share a stage with a white nationalist, and (if male) would never presume to decide what a woman can or cannot do with her uterus and contents.
Add an executive who would not incite or excuse civil or domestic violence, or tolerate such behavior from employees.
Add an executive who would not boast of or excuse sexual abuse, or tolerate such behavior from employees.
Add an executive who works full time, and doesn’t make the public pick up the tab for his/her hobby.
Add an executive who doesn’t cheat at golf, or, if married, on her/his spouse.

I’m really hoping the Dems don’t repeat the disaster that was the 2016 DNCC with its parade of celebrities and beautiful people, and the insultingly-pandering inter-faith prayers. I’m sure it will be even worse, though.

The whole election could be lost in a weekend if they mess up like that, again.

Xrep,
From the CBS poll I linked above. 66% of American voters support some form of public option/expanded medicare/singlepayer. 30% of them favor Bernies M4A plan. .30X.66= .198 round it up and you get 20%.
That is the hill the left is demanding that Democrats die on. Also the one Warren has tied herself to, now with no chance of moving to the center. Who was it who said she was a great campaigner?
Jack

Bink
It is going to be even worse, they are going to pander to the white union folks so that they will not vote for Trump again. It won’t work, that racist bunch is solid Trump Republican. But their wives…….
There was a lesson in 2018 and last weeks vote but don’t look for the Democratic party to learn anything.
Jack

Pogo
Sorry about Alabama, but you know what they say, “everything Trump touches dies” just a fact of life. Oh and what was he doing in the 4th quarter, busy tapping out tweets. An obvious case for impeachment.
Jack

Jack, I wish Bama fans had had the benefit of your insight this afternoon. Trust me on this – If they were faced with choosing between between booing Trump and winning and cheering Trump and losing, they would boo him every time.

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